The article was written by Jens Chrzanowski, Regional German Director at FCA regulated broker Admiral Markets UK.
Hello,
Jens Chrzanowski, Admiral Markets
Dedicating time, energy and resources toward introducing clients to an industry or specific product can be a headache for any business, not least those in the financial industry. The questions that many companies pose are: How can we make the opening period of using our services as easy as possible for new traders? How can we support them throughout the very first steps?
Many services suffer from a significant bounce rate, i.e. clients may interested in trying out your service, but the steps they have to take to get there – like opening a demo account, for example – may be too time consuming or complicated. The solution to this problem is this… You’re never truly finished optimising your ‘Getting Started’ process, you can always optimise a little more!
So, what should you be thinking about? What kind of things should a good education program for starters feature? Here’s what I think…
Structure and Order
Does what you’re offering make sense for those at starter-level? Does it have a clear, defined structure, or could it be seen as ‘overloading’ or ‘bombarding’ them? A great starter course or service should be split into easily digestible sections. If you can recall the school lessons of your childhood, you’ll probably remember that it’s near impossible to learn about mathematics or physics for three or more hours straight (wow, painful memories!)… But one or two hours a week is no problem at all. Everything we hear and take in, we need time to digest. Not forgetting that we may also have to practise what we’ve learned! So, structure is key!
Think Global – Act Local
Maybe you offer such a ‘starter’ service in English – but is that helpful for your entire global audience? You should try to offer support for as many different languages as possible, to really reach your target audience. The bounce rate – that magic red line – will be dramatically lower if you offer the language of your client.
Easy, Easy, Easy
We’re all experts already and sometimes we can’t help but use special, technical jargon or wording. That’s fine, as long the person you’re speaking to understands you. But if you’re targeting beginners, make it as simple as possible. Being able to describe complex things in an easy way which everyone understands is almost an art-form. Even the simple word ‘Forex’ can confuse – do a test, go out onto the street and ask people: “what is Forex?” – I bet less than five per cent can describe it absolutely correctly. But if you explain ‘Forex’ to your audience as “trading foreign exchange pairs”, you’ll have a much bigger impact. Don’t be afraid to speak simple. Sometimes we all like to demonstrate our knowledge and we can do so with other experts, but not with starters.
Still struggling for inspiration? Check out our example…
At Admiral Markets, we like to think we managed this quite well. We always welcome any new starters and encourage them to learn about trading, offering them a simple, easy to access, risk-free start with a demonstration account and support from local experts. Our nine lesson video course – Forex 101 – is 100% free and open to anyone who’d like to learn about trading. However, it’s aimed at beginners, so if you’re an advanced trader, you’ll probably find the content not very helpful. Each lesson consists of a short video and follow-up quiz and should be the perfect way to ‘get started’ with trading. Why not check it out?
See you next week!
Do you have feedback, concerns, requests, maybe even compliments? I’d love to hear. Please contact me via: [email protected].
Trading on margin carries a high level of risk, and this article should not be seen as advice or solicitation to buy or sell. It’s written for informational purposes only.